New York City. 1953. Werner Bischof

Description

Fifty years after the death of Swiss photographer Werner Bischof, his son Marco gathered together 70 previously unpublished photographs, including the photograph of two buildings in New York City in 1953, pictured here. The images in Questions To My Father powerfully reiterate the man Bischof was, the nature of his humanity and his search for a benign and beautiful cognisance of the brief and terrifying world in which he lived.

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I felt compelled to venture forth and explore the true face of the world. Leading a satisfying life of plenty had blinded many of us to the immense hardships beyond our borders

Werner Bischof was born in Switzerland in 1916. He studied photography with Hans Finsler in his native Zurich at the School for Arts and Crafts, then opened a photography and advertising studio.

In 1942, he became a freelancer for Du magazine, which published his first major photo essays. In the years that followed, Bischof traveled in Italy and Greece for Swiss Relief, an organization dedicated to post-war reconstruction. He was the first photographer to join Magnum with the founding members in 1949.

Disliking the ‘superficiality and sensationalism’ of the magazine business, he devoted much of his working life to looking for order and tranquility in traditional culture. Despite this he worked on commission in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Indochina. In 1953, he traveled throughout Mexico and Panama, and then on to a remote part of Peru, where he was engaged in making a film. Tragically, Wernor Bischof died in a road accident in the Andes on 16 May 1954.